An access network refers to a communication network for providing high-speed data services to customers based on existing constructed telephone lines, coaxial cables, or optical cables.
In general, the access network is divided into a distribution point (DP) and a customer premise (CP), and a distribution point unit (DPU) (hereinafter, referred to as DPU) provided at the distribution point generally operates with a power supply device itself, but when the DPU is located in an underground or a manhole, it is difficult to directly connect an independent power source.
In order to solve such a problem, in recent years, a reverse power feeding system that supplies power from the customer premise to the distribution point in a reverse direction has been developed and commercialized.
The reverse power feeding system comprises a reverse power feeding device for reversely supplying power to at least one customer premise and is connected to a powered device (PD) provided at the distribution point to supply power to the DPU.
Further, the distribution point may be configured to comprise one or more DPUs, and each DPU may be configured to comprise a single port or multiple ports with multiple ports. In addition, the DPU is connected with multiple customer premises through respective ports to provide xDSL data service.
The reverse power feeding device provided on the customer premise comprises a power sourcing equipment (PSE) device that injects AC power applied from the outside into a line (telephone line) to perform reverse power feeding and the PD provided at the distribution point receives power from the PSE device and supplies the received power to the DPU.
In such a structure, it is very important for the distribution point to provide the communication service to the customer premise provided with the reverse power feeding in order to operate the DPU by receiving the reverse power from multiple customer premises and performing the load balancing.
Next, a brief description will be given of the prior art in the technical field of the present invention, and then, a technical matter which the present invention intends to differentiate from the prior art will be described.
First, U.S. Pat. No. 9,319,537 (Apr. 19, 2016) relates to a technique for load balancing of reverse power feeding for estimating communication line power loss in a general communication system and relates to a technique which performs balancing for power supplied from a customer premise by receiving power multiple PDs receiving power in connection with multiple PSE devices at the distribution point and estimating the communication line power loss.
The prior art has some similarities to the present invention because the prior art provides a general technique for performing the load balancing and supplying power required for driving the DPU provided on the distribution point. On the other hand, according to the present invention, when the reverse power feeding is interrupted from a specific customer premise in the process of receiving reverse power from multiple customer premises, the link of the communication port connected to the customer premise is rapidly immediately blocked immediately upon detecting the interruption and unnecessary power consumption due to the communication port is prevented early so as to stably drive the DPU with the reverse power provided from the remaining customer premises. The prior art does not describe or suggest such a technical feature.
Further, U.S. Pat. No. 8,897,431 (registered on Nov. 25, 2014), which relates to a technique for feeding power to an outdoor broadband cabinet is a technique that receives power from the customer premise without using local power in order to increase efficiency of miniaturization and installation of the cabinet.
The prior art has some similarities with the configuration for controlling the power supply from the reverse power feeding to the distribution device on the customer premise of the present invention in that power is supplied from the customer equipment to the cabinet. However, the prior art merely suggests a configuration for the reverse power feeding. On the other hand, the present invention has been made in an effort to provide an apparatus and a method in which when the DPU provided on the distribution point is connected to the customer premise and receiving the reverse power from the customer premise, the power received from each customer premise is sensed and a specific customer premise which interrupts the reverse power feeding is detected to immediately block the link for the communication port connected to the customer premise and perform load balancing only with respect to the remaining ports so that the power for the corresponding DPU can be stably supplied and instability in the operation of the entire DPU can be solved due to the interruption of the reverse power feeding of the DPU.